Back in the 90s our school had one room with a permantently installed TV set. Class was taking part in this room once a week. When we all behaved - and we did! - we were allowed to watch MTV in this room for the last remaining 15 minutes of the lesson. It was the time where boy groups and Euro Dance music was at its peak. For us 5th or 6th-graders this was the most important thing every week.
What a waste of resources. Millions of devices will now add to the landfill, despite nothing is wrong with them in terms of technical funtionality. Just because Spotify wants them do be discontinued.
It should be law that when a manufacturer decides on discontinuing an otherwise fully functional product in such way, they should be forced to publish the source code of the software used for the respective device as well as any other resources for free so that users of these devices at least have a chance to repurpose it.
This also stands for any "smart" / internet-of-things-devices where the main functionality is reliing on the operation of a server. When the servers discontinue their services your device is basically a brick with no other functionality.
As it has been pointed out by others, research data shows that plastic bottle caps are a significant part of trash that is washed onto beaches. In order to prevent that bottles now come with tethered caps. From this point of view this measurement might be understandable. But does one really lose the caps of these bottles that often? Is this really the problem?
Where I live these kind of bottles are part of a deposit system. When you return them at a supermarket you get your deposit (25 Cent) back. This alone ensures that these bottles barely end up anywhere in the enviroment in the first place. When these bottles are returned at the supermarket, all of the bottles do have their respective caps screwed on. This method is practical, as you can collect these bottles wtihout having to deal with leakages of excess liquids.
I never had any issues regarding that the cap is still attached to the bottle, which could be an issue when it comes to recycling these bottles. One major problem when it comes to recycling of plastics is that it is crucial that these plastics are separated by the material they are made of. That is why it is impossible to recycle compound materials, as they can't be separated from each other (i.e. tetra pak, tetra bric). The most common way of getting rid of these kind of packings is to burn them and use their heat for generating electricity.
These plastic bottles on the other hand can be recycled easily, as they consist of only one material (PET) - given, that the label is made of the same kind of plastic like the bottle itself.
I don't know if the bottle cap is made of the same material (PET) or if this is another kind of plastic (ABS, PS, ...). Making these bottle caps from the same material as the bottle itself would impose a greater impact than tethering them onto the bottle.
At first glance this measurement sounds like a low-hanging-fruit-greenwashing-attempt that hurts nobody. Very similar to the ban of disposable plastic cutlery or the ban of plastic straws. Don't get me wrong - I think that these things are an important step towards reducing pollution and garbage overall, but did you ever ask yourself: "How does the garbage get into the ocean in the first place?"
There is an eerie resemblence between the smallest neuron and the largest structure in the universe - Galaxy Filament
Stell dir vor, es ist Europameisterschaft, alle träumen vom nächsten Sommermärchen und es gibt nichts zum Grillen! Für Millionen Menschen in Deutschland ein echtes Horrorszenario, das tatsächlich eintreten könnte.
Boah, schlimm. Und alles nur, weil keiner mehr arbeiten will! Dabei kaufen wir doch schon alle beim regionalen Land-Metzger, wegen des Tierwohls und auch wegen der Arbeitsbedingungen. /s
Wenn es einem so wichtig ist, Fleisch zur EM parat zu haben, dann könnte man dieses ja auch vorab kaufen und einfrieren. Oder man erweitert mal sein kulinarisches Spektrum und probiert etwas neues aus. Mittlerweile sind vegane Alternativen ja ganz passabel geworden.
Back in 2565 BC cameras weren't that advanced like they are today. Due to the long exposure time these people had to stand still for several hours in order to avoid too much blurriness of the photo. You can see that the people in the background (middle left in the photo) were moving slightly as the photo is a bit blurrier compared to the foreground.
The worst part of all is that no one would think of the fact that a vending machine is performing facial recognition techniques, because in general it is assumed that a vending machine is a mechanical device, as it has been in the past. There is not any user benefit in that.
I researched the manufacuter and in their brochure (see page 6) of a similar vending machine it is revealed what data can be processed:
Among the worst data sets are:
- product demographics
- measuring of foot traffic
- gender/ age/ etc.
Bonus: on page 7 of the product brochure they introduce an app which allows the customer to make purchases directly from their smatphone, with features like
- consumer engagement through gamification, interactive marketing, gifting, scratch-and-win receipts, product sampling and cross selling
"What do customers get?"
- a fun and engaging payment process
Finally! I always thought that payment is not fun enough. What a time to be alive.
Or Tesla could offer a different material choice, like COR-TEN steel. Its rusty surface will hide all the bugs and dirt and one does not need to wash the car immediately after exposure. Also, this choice of material comes with the same disadvantages stainless steel has to offer: e.g. no proper alignment of the body panels. This means that Tesla doesn't have to change their way of assembly.
This is a good example for bad design. Apart from the odd shape (this is debateable - perhaps some people like the design) the choice of the exterior material is not to be considered a good one, concidering the vehicle's exposure to the elements (dead bugs, tree sap, salt, dust, dirt, etc.) is nothing out of the ordinary. These are normal things an ordinary vehicle is exposed to.
Maybe Tesla could sell accessories like some kind of panel covers to protect the body of the car, in a similar way phone covers are being sold to protect phones. Which in itself is also the result of bad design: not only a phone cover hides the original design of the phone, the necessity to use a cover on a phone shows that the phone probalby is not built strong enough to withstand daily usage, like falling on the ground or being carried in a pocket.
BrandenburgsCDU-Chef Jan Redmann hat sich offen gezeigt, der AfD einen Vizeposten im Präsidium des Parlaments zuzugestehen. "Es nützt der AfD, dass deren Kandidaten regelmäßig bei der Wahl im Bundestag durchfallen", sagte der CDU-Politiker dem RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND). "Denn das stützt ihren eigenen Opfermythos, in dem die Partei sich so lustvoll badet. Sie versucht damit, die anderen als schlechte Demokraten zu stigmatisieren."
Da hat wohl jemand noch Restbestände der guten alten Bleifarbe von der IG Farben aufgetan. Vielleicht sollte sich der Herr Redmann einmal die Correctiv!- Recherche durchlesen. Gerade in der CDU und auch in der Werteunion scheinen viele Kandidaten zu sitzen, die sicherlich kein Problem damit haben, mit der AfD zu koalieren, sollte diese an die Macht kommen. Vermutlich gibt es sogar starke Überschneidungen in der Gesinnung.
It only would be a big problem if household devices like washing machines are built in a way that makes a connection to the internet mandatory in order to function properly. Imagine you can't do your laundry because of an internet outage.
Name any household device (washing machine, dishwasher, dryer, toaster, water kettle, iron, coffee maker, (microwave) oven, ...) that has been improved in functionality by connecting it to the internet, making it a internet-of-things-device. I can't think of any.
We have a washing machine that cannot be connected to the internet. After starting the program, we set up a timer on our smartphone, 15 minutes longer than the time the washing machine display is predicting. Works like a charm.
Es geht einfach darum, den börsendotierten Konzernen und den großen Arbeitgebern weiterhin hohe Gewinneinnahmen zu generieren, als Kompensation für geringere Abstätze ihrer Produkte.
Es geht ja anscheinend nicht darum, produktiver, also effizienter zu arbeiten, sondern einfach eine noch längere Zeitspanne als sonst schon irgendwelche sinnlosen Bullshit-Arbeiten zu verrichten. Ginge es um Produktivität oder Effizienz, dann würde man bessere Werkzeuge, modernere Ausrüstung etc. bereitstellen. Dies würde aber bedeuten, dass man was investieren müsste, was den momentanen Gewinn in diesem Fall aber schmälert.
Die Leute aber mehr arbeiten zu lassen, kann man quasi umsonst haben. Die geleisteten Überstunden werden dann halt aus irgendwelchen Gründen nicht anerkannt - zumindest kann ich mir so etwas in vielen Jobs vorstellen, bei denen der Arbeitnehmer ungelernt und somit schnell austauschbar ist. Arbeitnehmer, die um ihren Wert wissen, oder eine gefragte Qualifikation haben, werden so etwas nicht so leicht mit sich machen lassen. Darum bleibt auch der öffentliche Aufschrei aus.